


The Blackest Night of the Year

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Deviates From Canon, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Ghosts, Lost Love, M/M, Memories, Mild Internalized Homophobia, Mutual Pining, Regret, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26867683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: Marley's ghost takes Scrooge back to a fateful Christmas past.
Relationships: Jacob Marley/Ebenezer Scrooge
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Writing Rainbow Black





	The Blackest Night of the Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



“Sir? Kind sir?”

The voice sounded behind Ebenezer Scrooge as he made his way home from dinner at his usual tavern, his hat pressed down tight upon his head and his collar raised to protect his neck from the cold breeze that swept the snow into little eddies along the edge of the path. 

Scrooge knew the voice well. It came from a boy of sixteen, perhaps a little older, who often asked for alms from unsuspecting people he should know better than to bother. Scrooge felt his ire rise at being spoken to at all, let alone begged for coin by this particular boy who must only be bothering him because he didn’t recognize Scrooge in the dark. 

“Can you spare—”

Scrooge spun so the beggar could see whom he was harassing and raised his walking stick as if to strike. “I thought I’d made it clear to you never to trouble me again.”

Even in the dark Scrooge could see a smudge of dirt on the left side of his face. Scrooge turned his entire body sideways to avoid looking at him. A workhouse was the place for someone like that, put some muscle on his bones with good honest labor. Prison would do as well. He didn’t really care where the boy went, as long as it was far from here. 

“I’m sorry, sir!” The boy backed away from him, hands up. “I didn’t realize it was you, in my need, sir!”

Scrooge lowered the stick. He’d swung at the boy last time when he’d made it clear he should never ask for coin from him again, though he’d purposefully missed. The gesture had proven enough. 

“Your _need_? Find employment and you’ll be paid for your need. Why are you out this late, pestering honest working people who earn their pay?”

The boy lowered his hands but still took another step back, in case. “It’s Christmas Eve, sir, the happiest night of the year. People filled with a generous spirit, and we’ve so little to eat. I thought—”

“Happiest night of the year?” Scrooge spat back at him. “Humbug! Blackest, bleakest night of the year for many. Clearly not happy for you, is it?” _Nor is it happy for me_. “Go home, boy, and stop being a menace or I’ll see to it that you’re locked up for vagrancy by Christmas morn.”

The boy’s footfalls had faded by the time Scrooge reached his door, so he tried to put the unpleasantness, and the boy’s face, out of his mind. 

_Scrooooooge_

Scrooge spun and glanced around to see who dared approach him now, but the street was empty. 

_Scroooooge_ came louder, and when turned back to his door, he started and stumbled backward. He blinked and rubbed his knuckles across his eyes. 

Everything about his door was now as it should be but he could have sworn someone had appeared in front of him, as if the door knocker had transformed into a familiar face. 

“You’re an old fool,” he mumbled to himself. “A damned old fool.”

Scrooge managed to put the incident mostly from his mind for the rest of the evening, instead distracting himself from thoughts of the face and the voice and the damned beggar boy by focusing on profits and being bitter about how little he would make tomorrow while everyone but him was focused on making merry and squandering what little fortunes they had. 

“The happiest night of the year,” he repeated sourly as he sat in front of the fire. “Bah. Happiest for whom?” He’d never cared for Christmas, not since he was a young man, and he’d grown to hate it over the years. Never more than the last seven when it had become a dark anniversary in his life, one he might be able to ignore if not for every damned fool reminding him by yapping _Merry Christmas_ at each other. 

That led him to think of his nephew Fred’s visit earlier in the day. Fred had been hopeful that he would join them tomorrow for Christmas dinner. Could none of them understand he only wanted to forget the day altogether? Why wouldn’t they merely leave him alone? 

He grumbled and rose to poke the fire, when metal clanking against metal sounded behind him, as if from a distance, and then footsteps fell into rhythm with the clanking, drawing closer. The front door he’d shut tight and double-locked slammed open. 

Scrooge froze, though he wondered and even suspected this was a dream and he was currently in his bed, chilled not by the wind coming through his front door strongly enough to reach this room and gutter the candle sat by his chair, but from a draught because he’d failed to secure his bedroom window pane well enough. 

“But a dream,” he told himself, yet he still didn’t move as the sounds drew closer until they were outside the room where he stood, stiff. Unlike his front door, this one didn’t open or slam. A figure stepped through it as if it posed no barrier at all, dragging those clanking chains all the way, and moved until it stood directly in front of Scrooge. 

Scrooge took in the sight of the man standing before him, near transparent as he was, and discarded it as false. He was asleep, or perhaps suffering with fever, or in his dying throes and imagining things that could not be here. “No. You do not exist.”

“Do I not?” Metal clanked as the figure stepped closer, leaning in so that Scrooge could feel the cool breeze of his breath as he spoke. “You know full well who I am, Ebenezer.”

Scrooge closed his eyes at the sound of his name spoken in that familiar yet strange voice, unable to look upon the face before him any longer. It was a cruel parody of Jacob Marley, his cheeks sunken even more than they had been at his death, his skin grayish-white and dry, his shoulders hunched under the weight of those chains that bore what looked like ledgers and cash-boxes and padlocks and round little discs, much smaller than the rest, that glinted in the firelight. 

“You cannot be . . . him.” Even saying the name aloud was beyond Scrooge at the moment, because each time he’d had cause to do so over the last seven years it had set an ache in his chest that took days or weeks to fade. 

“I _am_ Jacob Marley, your partner.”

“He died s—”

“Seven years ago tonight. And I thank you for seeing to all the necessary arrangements just as I’d wished. And for mourning me. Sole mourner at my burial, in fact. That part was not legally required by your role as executor, so I thank you for that. It pleases me.”

Marley’s ghost _couldn’t_ be here in front of him now. This was the stuff of children’s fairy stories and make-believe, not cold, hard reality. 

“Right now, Ebenezer, you’re trying to convince yourself that you’ve eaten something that disagrees with you and perhaps I’m part of a dyspepsia-induced nightmare. I know how you think. But I am not one too many lumps in old gravy, my friend.”

Metal clanked, footsteps shuffled, and when Scrooge opened his eyes, Marley’s ghost sat in the chair across from his. His face looked less sunken and gray, and unless Scrooge’s eyes deceived him (but of course they deceived him right now, in every way!) Marley looked slightly healthier and more robust than he had the day he’d died. 

“Ask me why I’m here,” Marley said. 

Scrooge slowly sat in his chair. “Alright. Why?”

Marley laughed. “You’re so stingy, even with words. I’m here to help you, Ebenezer.”

“I don’t need help. Business is good, profits are high. For what could I possibly need help?” 

“You couldn’t spare a shilling for that hungry boy? At Christmas of all times? Your heart’s as cold and hard and black as the coal you’re too spendthrift to burn.”

It was Scrooge’s turn to laugh. “Are you here to lecture me on generosity? I have seen you pass by both filthy beggars and pressed, suited men begging for charities alike hundreds of times. You’d have done the same, because I’ve seen you _do_ the same.”

Marley rattled the chains that covered him and screamed, a sound that chilled Scrooge more than any snowy wind could manage. He leapt from his chair and cowered behind it. “Stop!” he shouted, struggling to be heard above Marley’s wail.

When it stopped, Scrooge peeked around his chair to see that Marley stood, and despite his wail he looked younger and healthier than a moment before. He shook the chains that covered him, the clanking loud and sharp enough to make Scrooge flinch. 

“Why do you do that?” he asked, gesturing at Marley’s chains. “What is this upon you?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life, Ebenezer. I made it link by link and yard by yard. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full and heavy and long as this seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”

Scrooge shook his head. “I wear no chain. I’m free of foolish sentiment and nostalgia, the waste of the season, spending money on things one can’t afford and does not need.”

“Link by link,” Marley repeated, “I forged a chain of my own unhappiness. And yours is as heavy as mine, I promise you.”

“Bah.” 

Marley approached him, and the only thing that kept Scrooge from stepping backward was how alive he actually looked, his flesh no longer gray but fairly pinked with color, his eyes not almost covered in white but the irises showing a familiar and deep shade of blue. 

“I know the weight of your chain, Ebenezer, for its links match mine.”

Scrooge tilted to the side as the room spun around him, forcing him to right himself by grabbing his chair. His fireplace and chairs disappeared, even as he held one for balance, and a much smaller room took its place. 

Scrooge’s heart clenched as he recognized the humble furnishings and the diamond pattern of the quilt on the bed. They were in the bedroom of Jacob Marley’s small flat when they were in their early twenties and had only just gone into business together. 

“What is this?” he gasped. 

“Watch,” Marley whispered behind him, as he and Jacob, fresh-faced and in their finest suits, burst into the room laughing about some forgotten joke. Scrooge carried a large box tied with red ribbon. He put it on the bed, then they rubbed their hands on their arms and spoke of how cold it had gotten while Marley started a fire in the black woodstove near the bed.

“Open it,” Scrooge watched himself say, smiling brightly as he sat on the bed, “though I suspect you’ve already guessed what it is.”

Scrooged turned away from the sight to face Marley’s ghost. “I remember this. There’s no need to remind me. Take it away now.”

But Marley pointed until Scrooge looked again at young Jacob opening the box and putting the low top hat onto his head. “It’s perfect, Ebenezer.”

“Yours is fraying at the brim, and you’re too cheap to replace it yourself,” Ebenezer said with a laugh.

Jacob laughed with him. “Not too cheap, just using the funds for other things currently. I have something for you, too.”

Jacob reached beneath his mattress to pull out a small box, perhaps large enough to hold a lapel pin or a tie tack and sat on the bed as well. Ebenezer tore it open and held up the thin round of metal, perhaps once a coin, but with a hole in the center. It was engraved with “Scrooge and Marley” and the date they opened their business. It shone in his palm. 

“For luck,” Jacob said. “It . . it was a ring that the craftsman flattened and engraved. The hole’s still big enough if you wanted to loop a chain through it, perhaps to ensure you don’t lose it or accidentally spend it as a coin or . . . to keep some other way.”

Scrooge spun away from the scene, the _memory_ , in front of him. He didn’t want to remember or be forced to think about what he'd felt or what he’d hoped for. “Don’t. Stop this, please.”

The scene didn’t stop, even though his back was turned. “It’s wonderful, Jacob. Beautiful, and so unique!” 

Scrooge didn’t need to see what happened next. He remembered it vividly. While he turned it, scrutinizing, marveling that it had once been a ring, Jacob said, “Like you.” He had taken it from him and slipped it into Ebenezer’s vest pocket, patting it after and keeping his hand there as he looked into Ebenezer’s eyes. 

“Please stop,” Scrooge begged. “I don’t want to see this.”

Marley’s ghost gripped Scrooge firmly by the shoulders and spun him around so that unless he closed his eyes, he had no choice. He found he couldn’t look away. 

Jacob leaned forward and pressed his lips against Ebenezer’s. Scrooge swore he could feel that kiss still, so strange but wonderful, warm and soft and a desire he'd had since they were teenagers in school together but had never had the courage to act upon. 

Scrooge touched his lips with his fingertips and watched as Jacob cupped the back of his neck. He pressed his tongue between Ebenezer’s lips, deepening the kiss and slowly pushing him down until his back lay against the bed. Jacob cupped the bulge that had sprung up between Ebenezer's legs and pressed. 

He remembered that touch, too. How exciting it had been, and how frightening. The lessons of his upbringing had wrestled inside him with the joy he felt at finally knowing Jacob’s touch. Were they deviant? Was the feeling welling up inside him of not being able to draw Jacob close enough or kiss him deeply enough one born of perversion? How could something bad feel so incredibly wholesome and wonderful?

“Stop this now! I wish to see no more,” Scrooge said, his voice breaking and the lost sound of it sending a chill through his limbs. 

A pounding on the door stopped their kiss. Jacob sprang up off the bed as if they’d been caught out. He rushed from the room and to the front door, clearly irritated, and left Ebenezer on the bed. The front door clicked open and singing followed, and rather than lie there waiting and wondering what would happen, Ebenezer went to the front steps to stand next to Jacob and listen to the carolers. Jacob smiled at him and crossed his arms, and together they listened to the happy, melodious voices, but Ebenezer couldn’t keep his eyes off Jacob. He took in the fine line of his jaw, the way his eyes narrowed at the corners when he smiled, and the pale skin of his neck that Ebenezer wanted to press his nose and lips against just to feel its warmth.

Jacob’s smile faltered when he caught Ebenezer’s gaze. He moved away, putting more distance between them, and only then did Ebenezer realize how he’d been leaning toward Jacob, threatening to let his feelings show to the carolers and everyone gathered near to hear them. 

Perhaps he already had.

As they sang about Christmas and God and gentlemen and salvation, a faintness overtook him. He had to struggle to remain standing there, stock-still, until the singing was over. He swore the crowds' eyes held judgement. He’d given his feelings away by looking at Jacob the way he had, forcing him to move aside. 

They knew, and they judged, and perhaps God would do the same. They’d only just gotten started in business, and Ebenezer may have already ruined their reputation in the entire community. 

The moment the carolers stopped and moved on, some of them casting what he imagined were disparaging looks over their shoulders at him and Jacob as they went, Ebenezer rushed back into the flat to grab his greatcoat where it hung on a hook next to Jacob's inside the front door. Jacob hurried with him and put his hand on top of Ebenezer’s before he’d managed to shrug into his coat. “Where are you going? I didn’t think you were spending Christmas Eve with family, so I thought . . . you could spend it here with me.”

He kissed Ebenezer again, hungrier this time, and pressed him against the wall. Ebenezer shoved him away. “I should get home before it grows any colder.” He elbowed Jacob away from him far enough to get his coat on. 

"But you've never minded the cold." Jacob grabbed Ebenezer's hat from the hook but instead of offering it to him held it against his chest. “Why are you acting this way? I thought we . . . I thought you wanted—”

“You were mistaken, Marley,” Ebenezer said, his voice cold and trembling as his cheeks burned with shame and misery. 

“Ebenezer, if I've overstepped, I’m truly sorry. But I was so sure—”

“All is forgiven. Thank you for the gift. I’ll keep it always, and undoubtedly it’ll prove lucky for our business venture.” He held out his hand for the hat Jacob was practically squeezing into shapelessness. “If you please, Marley.”

“Ebenezer, please, let’s talk ab—”

“Bah,” Ebenezer said, and rushed from Jacob’s flat without his hat. He feared another moment of listening to Jacob say his name so soft and uncertain would cause him to press their lips together again despite the surety that they would be ruined by it. 

Jacob waved the hat in the air and called after him. “Ebenezer!” He ran after him at first, but then just shouted, “Scrooge, _wait_!” 

He didn’t wait. He ran home, locked himself in, and took to his bed where he remained most of Christmas Day. When he returned to work on the 26th, his hat waited for him on his little desk, and Jacob merely greeted him with a bow of his head and a “Good morning, Scrooge.”

They never spoke of it or exchanged Christmas presents again. They'd stayed friends, of course, the only friend the other ever had, but things between them had never been the same. When they laughed, it was about someone's foolishness or the steep profits they were going to turn with one business arrangement or another. They both concerned themselves with business and things that related to business and little else. Ebenezer never set foot in Marley’s bedroom again, in that flat or any other, until he’d been set in charge of distributing Marley’s possessions after his death. The top hat, frayed and faded with age, still sat in its box though it hadn’t been fit to wear for many years. Scrooge had closed Marley's bedroom and left everything in place, unable to bear the thought of others touching anything that had belonged to him.

Scrooge shook with misery at watching these memories play themselves out in front of him. “Why? Why did you make me relive this?”

Old Marley was gone now, and a fresh, youthful face of twenty-two was before him. 

“I let my sadness, my resentments at not being happy cause me to dislike seeing others happy. I focused on business and profits to distract myself from you sitting mere feet away from me day after day, feet that might have been fathoms between us. I hated Christmas after that,” Marley confessed. “And so did you.”

“For good reasons,” Scrooge shot back. “For _obvious_ reasons.”

"So we told ourselves." Marley moved behind Scrooge and gripped his shoulders, his whisper cold against Scrooge’s ear. “You saw what was. Now see what _could_ have been. What should have been.”

They were in that hated bedroom, but now the quilt was crumpled as two bodies moved beneath it. Jacob’s dark hair hung down, some sticking to his forehead, damp with sweat, as he rocked into Ebenezer. They rolled under the quilt until Ebenezer was on top, pinning Jacob’s hands, his laugh cut off as Jacob leaned up and kissed him. 

Scrooge squeezed his eyes shut, and then clamped his hands over his ears to block out the soft moans and gasps he’d imagined himself so many times before giving in to guilt and vowing never to think of such things again. After a few minutes, he opened one eye to see them merely lying in the bed, Jacob’s head on his chest. He lowered his hands and listened as another knock came on Jacob’s front door. 

“More carolers,” Jacob said, making no move to answer. “Should we wrap a sheet around ourselves together and go greet them arm in arm? Can you imagine the scandal?”

“God rest ye merry gentlemen,” Ebenezer said with a laugh as he curled Jacob’s hair around his fingertip. “Why yes, we were _trying_ to rest, thank you very much.”

They lay in silence, Jacob sometimes kissing Ebenezer’s chest or stroking there with his hand, until Ebenezer finally said, “In all seriousness, Jacob, the scandal would be great if there were even a hint—”

“Shhh. Of course it would, but no one need know. We’re well-respected business partners, together all the time already.”

“But if someone knew we’d be ruined,” Ebenezer softly voiced the very thoughts that had led him to run from Jacob’s home that night. 

“And we’d go somewhere else and start over.” Jacob slid up to kiss his lips. “It’s as simple as that. Stop thinking such morbid things, Ebenezer. It’s Christmas Eve.”

Jacob pressed his mouth against Ebenezer’s collarbone and shifted his body so that he lay fully atop him. “And I have many more presents to give you tonight.”

Ebenezer laughed. "Oh, _many_ more, is it? How confident you are.” They rolled beneath the quilt until Scrooge had to clamp his hands over his ears and turn away. He could have had a lifetime of this, teasing and laughter and joy, Jacob’s kiss and his touch. All wasted for one weak moment of shame and uncertainty. 

This was too cruel. He dropped to his knees as the strength in his legs disappeared with the shattering of his already long-broken heart.

“Why?” he cried out. “Why would you show me what could have been now that our fate cannot be changed? Why are you doing this to me? Are you punishing me now, Jacob?” Warmth ran down his cold cheeks and only then did he realize that he wept. 

Marley’s ghost knelt before him and took Scrooge’s hands in his cold ones. “I don’t want to punish you. I want to spare you what I’ve had to endure. Seeing people in need begging for scraps while others turn away and wanting desperately to help now that I no longer can. Seeing this night play out again and again and wishing I had run after you and made you talk to me rather than let my own insecurities stop me. Instead, I destroyed my own happiness, and yours, with day after day of denial and inaction. I want to spare you more of that before your time to enjoy life is over.”

Jacob pressed a hand against Scrooge’s face, the most tender touch Scrooge had known since that Christmas Eve when he’d run away from the very thing he’d wanted most. “I want to help you, Ebenezer. I want to set you free, and in doing so, perhaps free us both.”

“I’m your good deed, then,” he said with a sniff as he fought another sob, “to free yourself from an eternity of reliving your regrets?”

Marley laughed, his face still that of twenty-two. “Good old Scrooge. Leave it to you to look for an angle. Old habits do die hard.” He took Scrooge’s face in both hands. “You’re not my good deed. I loved you in life, Ebenezer, and I feel it still. Is that not reason enough?”

“Jacob,” he gasped, and threw himself into the ghostly arms that opened for him, surprised at the solidness of the body he held tight. That close, he understood what the small rings between the coin boxes and padlocks on the chain really were. Each one shone as if freshly polished and bore the inscription “Scrooge and Marley,” exact replicas of the gift Jacob had given him.

That realization sent a fresh stream of tears down his face. “I'm so sorry, Jacob. Sorry I didn't have more courage. But how can I be happy now that you're gone?"

"You can, if you try. There's still life to be lived."

"How can I be free when I have so many regrets?" He did what he'd never had the bravery to do in life and pressed his mouth and his cheek against Jacob's neck. "How are you so sure I can be saved?”

“Because I know your bitterness and resentment sprang from the same misguided reasons as mine. Reasons I want to correct for you now.” He leaned back and put fingers under Scrooge’s chin to lift his face. “You’ve not pushed the ability to feel love so far away from yourself that you’re beyond hope. Not yet.”

“How do you know this?”

“I see plenty of reasons to believe it. You hate Christmas even more now because it’s when you lost me, and you still carry my gift in your vest pocket. I’m dead seven years but my name still graces the sign hung above our counting house door. And you moved into my home, but left my bedroom as it was when I died while you sleep in another room. There are more I don’t need to tell you. You’ll understand them in time, I’m sure.”

He'd told himself Marley's home was in less need of repair than his. But that hadn't been it at all. He couldn't bear to let anyone else into Marley's most private places, though some of the less-used chambers he let out as offices, along with his own home once he left it. But the kitchen, Marley's bedroom and the guest bedroom where he'd made his home, the library and the dining area, he couldn't let those be spoilt by others. Now he could admit to himself that it was a way to feel closer to Jacob, perhaps to still feel his presence. "Moving in here seemed the right thing to do. The best thing. The only thing . . . I could bear."

"I know." Marley smiled, and Scrooge gasped at the sight.

“Jacob, you're—you were so beautiful.”

His smile broadened. “We both were Ebenezer. You still are inside here somewhere.” He patted Ebenezer’s chest. 

“Humbug,” Scrooge said, but softly and without much conviction. 

“Old men carry the youthful men they were still inside them. And old men who truly live never forget what it felt like to be young. We let ourselves forget. Nay, we _made_ ourselves forget. While there’s still time for you, Ebenezer, I want you to remember, and to promise me you'll embrace joy where you find it, and try to live . . .”

Holding Scrooge's face in ghostly hands, Marley pressed his cold mouth against Scrooge’s warm one, and fresh tears tickled their way down Scrooge’s cheeks. For just a moment, they were both young again, reliving that first kiss, and Scrooge understood how his own self-denial had turned his heart so hard.

The sound of metal clanking was followed by a knock, as if links from the chain were opening and dropping to the floor. Small clatters that could only be those flattened rings mixed with the louder sounds, and the clinks and clatters became the ticking of a clock and then the beating of his own heart, racing in his chest as he woke on his knees, his arms and face pressed against the edge of his bed. 

Had it all been a dream? He could still feel lips against his own and Jacob’s hands on his face, his arms around Scrooge holding him tight. He raced to his wardrobe and pulled out his vest to check its pocket. The disc bearing their names was gone. 

Frantic, Scrooge searched through his rooms and gasped when he saw the glint of metal on his chair, the flattened ring placed in its center. 

“Jacob?” he dared whisper. “Are you here?”

The clock bell struck the hour, and Scrooge nearly jumped out of his robe. Nine o’clock. Voices outside the window drew him there, and he looked out to see people rushing about, no doubt on their way to family for the day or off to shop for their dinner. 

The boy he’d threatened to have arrested the night before wandered back and forth, not far from Scrooge’s front door. Still dirty. Undoubtedly still hungry.

His breath caught, and he choked back a sob. He’d told himself that he’d hated that boy so much from the first time he’d set eyes up on him because he was a beggar and should find some other way to occupy his time and earn a wage. But looking at him in the pale morning sun, the reasons he bristled each time he caught a glimpse of him were suddenly obvious. 

He reminded Scrooge, just a little, of Jacob Marley.

The cut of his jaw and his blue eyes, the shape of his brow . . . he was a fine-looking young man who had features similar enough to remind him of a young Jacob, and because those memories were so painful he couldn’t bear to look upon the boy. 

_I know your bitterness and resentment sprang from the same misguided reasons as mine._

“Indeed,” he whispered to himself as he swallowed down the lump in his throat. Then he shouted out his window. “You there! Boy!”

The boy looked to him, then turned away as if to leave. Smart one, he was. Scrooge would have run from his shout too, after everything. 

“Wait. I’m sorry for what I said to you. I want to give you something.” He ran from the room and grabbed a pouch of coins he had only counted twice and had intended to count again before storing them away. He ran out his front door still wearing his nightshirt, robe and slippers and caught the boy who was hurrying away down the street.

“I’m sorry, sir! I wasn’t going to ask you for nothin’.”

“No, no. Here,” Scrooge said, shoving the small cloth pouch at him. “Have a . . . good . . . Merry Christmas to you, boy.”

The boy looked at the pouch, at Scrooge, back at the pouch. 

“What’s your name?”

“Albert, sir.”

“Albert. A good, fine name. A sturdy name.” He clapped the boy on the shoulders. His heart ached at the confused blue eyes staring back at him. _I'm so sorry._

“I can’t—I can’t accept this, sir. If I go home with this, my father will whip me thinking I stole it.”

Scrooge laughed. “Will he now? Then wait for me to dress and I’ll come with you so he knows it’s a gift and nothing more. Alright?”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but have ya gone mad?” Albert stepped backward as he said it, probably in the hopes of dodging a blow if one came. 

Scrooge clapped his hands together and grabbed Albert’s shoulders again. “A reasonable question, my boy, but no, I’ve gone sane. I think I’ve woken up from a kind of madness. Just wait here. I’ll hurry!”

Scrooge raced to dress and grabbed another pouch of coins as he left his house. He intended to buy the fattest goose he could and have it sent to Bob Cratchit’s house as a Christmas bonus, and see if he could find a gift suitable to take to Fred’s house later that day, if they would still have him. 

Before he left, he plucked the disc bearing “Scrooge and Marley” from his chair. He pressed his lips against it and closed his eyes, then tucked into his vest pocket. He patted it, and then pressed his hand there and remembered Jacob’s face as he’d kissed him. "Oh, Jacob," he said, choking back tears. "I promise you. I'll try. I _will_ try." 

When he hurried outside, Albert stood waiting for him, and though it still hurt to be reminded so much of a young Jacob, it also made Scrooge’s heart light in a way he’d never let it before. As they walked toward Albert’s house, Scrooge wished the people on the street a Merry Christmas and took delight in every shocked but pleased expression it caused, each one lightening his burdens and softening his heart, and letting him stand a little taller. He imagined, or maybe somehow he heard, the sound of chain links, perhaps his and Marley’s both, breaking and dropping away.

He threw a handful of coins into the air with a laugh, and they glinted brightly in the sunlight before they fell back to earth.


End file.
